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Vic's Bimmer Shop
Lancaster, CA 93534 USA
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Vic's Bimmer Shop is a BMW & Mini specialty shop that has been proudly serving the Lancaster area since 1987. This RepairPal Certified shop features an experienced and well trained team of automotive professionals. Repairs performed here can range from minor and major mechanical repairs, to check engine light and computer diagnosis and repairs, as well as your scheduled maintenance needs. All this work is backed by a 24-month / 24,000-mile warranty for your peace of mind. Our survey of their recent customers revealed a group who describe the team here as: "helpful", "reliable", "excellent", and "knowledgeable". A local shuttle service, rental cars, and a waiting area with wireless Internet are also available.Reviews
Auto Repair Experience
- Victor Vega, Owner
- Established 1987
- 2 Auto Repair Mechanics on Staff
- 43 Years of Car Repair Experience
- AC/Heating
- Check Engine Light
- Diagnosis
- Muffler & Exhaust
- Oil Change & Lube
- Scheduled Maintenance
- Service & Repair
- Timing Belts
- Transmission Repair
- Car Delivery
- Car Pickup/Dropoff
- Car Wash
- Coffee
- Financing
- Free Multi-Point Safety Inspection
- Military Discount
- Rental Car
- Se Habla Espanol
- Service Guarantee
- Shopping Nearby
- Shuttle
- Wireless Internet
Makes We Serve
- Mini
Message from the Shop
Vic's Bimmer open since 1987 is the only shop exclusive for BMW & Mini auto service & repair, with 30 years of BMW experience and the latest on diagnostic and test equipment,competitive pricing, quality parts and a friendly staff. We are your first alternative to the dealer. And NOW we offer full AUTO BODY & PAINT center, from a small dent to a full paint job give us a call send us an e mail or check our web site for further information and get our app for apple & android phones to check on. Specials & coupons.
Thanks for your interest in our company. Vic Vega owner
Overall Rating85 Verified Reviews
Customer Reviewsby Tim – Verified Customer July 01, 2016
Awesome service and great peopleby Tim – Verified Customer June 30, 2016
Excellent - as always.by Jim – Verified Customer June 28, 2016
Excellent serviceby Steve – Verified Customer June 24, 2016
Best BMW mechanic in town. Great family run business!!!Show more reviewsby Jeannie – Verified Customer June 24, 2016
All mechanical problems resolve with great satisfactionby Verified Customer June 20, 2016
Great shop was recommended by my brother and was satisfied they were able to do the job to factory specs.will be coming back!by Pedro – Verified Customer June 16, 2016
personal service always appreciatedby Marilyn – Verified Customer June 14, 2016
It's so nice to have a BMW service center here in Lancaster. I bought the vehicle in Valencia and whenever it needed service I took it there and pretty much spent the entire day driving to and from and waiting while the work was done. Vic knows cars, is a problem solver, has people skills and even drove me home so I wouldn't have to wait. His staff is courteous and everyone on the team works well together to make your service experience a pleasant one.by Roger – Verified Customer June 13, 2016
Good place.Show more reviewsby Larry – Verified Customer June 13, 2016
Service was good. I went for an oil changeby Rick – Verified Customer May 31, 2016
Great service quicklyby Jennifer – Verified Customer May 25, 2016
Knowledgeable. Friendly staff. Quick. First time at Vic's--best service we've had a car dealership.by Verified Customer May 24, 2016
Greatby Renee – Verified Customer May 24, 2016
Excellent customer service.Show more reviewsby Dameion – Verified Customer May 23, 2016
The service was quick and easy. Great to know that I can find great service for my BMW close to home.by Rene – Verified Customer May 19, 2016
I was able to get in the same day.by Carlos – Verified Customer May 18, 2016
Great service!by Diana – Verified Customer May 13, 2016
The car runs perfectby Robert – Verified Customer May 10, 2016
Great customer serviceShow more reviewsby Jennifer – Verified Customer May 04, 2016
Great shop, honest and friendly.by Dennis – Verified Customer May 03, 2016
The service was excellent.by Amy – Verified Customer May 03, 2016
Great service... My car was cleaner when I picked it up than when I dropped it off.by Desire – Verified Customer May 02, 2016
Fast and effective serviceby Lamont – Verified Customer April 29, 2016
Honest shop, quick, and very friendly. Also very professional.Show more reviewsby Carmel – Verified Customer April 28, 2016
Excellent service.by Krishnaveni – Verified Customer April 27, 2016
I like their workmanship, ethic is very good.by Belva – Verified Customer April 22, 2016
I just felt I was getting ripped off. he said I need a gas cap he charged 30 dollars I bought it at NAPA for $12...and was charge $75 just for diagnostic and that initial charge did not apply to the work.by Robert – Verified Customer April 18, 2016
Great service. Extremely friendly. Honest mechanic.by Glenn – Verified Customer April 15, 2016
The service was excellent. Repairs were made in a timely manner.Show more reviewsby Jessie – Verified Customer April 15, 2016
They kept cost in mind...but never followed up with me for a quote that was needed for a part. They said they would get the quote and email me or call me- neither happened. So...while they were nice enough and budget friendly; the lack of customer service and follow up led me to take my business elsewhere. Given the volume of work they do- I doubt they'll miss my business, lol. Also, they checked my air filter- but didn't remove the cover...they obviously pried it open to take pics...as it was clear that the secondary air intake hose was never removed or clamps unscrewed, lol. Lucky they didn't break the housing unit. So...that was pretty unprofessional. Actually- that really bothered me...they should have done it properly- which makes me wonder what other corners they cut. You know...ethicsby Lesha – Verified Customer April 14, 2016
Excellent service.by Verified Customer April 14, 2016
Great customer service, friendly staff.by Don – Verified Customer March 31, 2016
You are great.by Sherrie – Verified Customer March 31, 2016
I like the honesty, service, location. And they are trustworthy.Show more reviewsby Kenneth – Verified Customer March 31, 2016
I was pleased with the service.by Junior – Verified Customer March 31, 2016
Great service.by Susan – Verified Customer March 29, 2016
Great service and people.by Verified Customer March 29, 2016
I thought they were expensive.by Katie – Verified Customer March 28, 2016
Excellent, friendly. They don't try to oversell you things.Show more reviewsby Jill – Verified Customer March 25, 2016
This is a family run business, with that extra level of personal service. The overall experience is exceptional - from office/scheduling/billing to the work completed on the car itself.by Kent – Verified Customer March 23, 2016
The best comprehensive service for my BMW.by Mark – Verified Customer March 23, 2016
Very good work and they are very friendly.by Verified Customer March 23, 2016
They're great.by Teshia – Verified Customer March 18, 2016
The service is always prompt.Show more reviewsby Kim – Verified Customer March 18, 2016
They are thorough with inspections and friendly.by Aide – Verified Customer March 17, 2016
They are helpful and tell what your car needs done.by Susan – Verified Customer March 17, 2016
They do good work.by Daniel – Verified Customer March 16, 2016
Great service, would be a 10 but I have to return because they couldn't reset my service reminder due to a software update on their computer.by Patrick – Verified Customer March 11, 2016
If you live in the AV and own a BMW I say go to Vic's, the people are nice and friendly and you don't have to travel to far for services.Show more reviewsby Verified Customer March 10, 2016
Great customer service.by Danny – Verified Customer March 10, 2016
They were very knowledgeable about BMWs and notified my quickly on what issues my car had. They also had alternative suggestions how to spend less money on repairs.by Artia – Verified Customer March 09, 2016
They are very nice professional, proficient and not expensive. Most Bimmer places charge an arm and a leg because they think you have a lot of money because you have a Bimmer, and that's not the case, my Bimmer was a gift.by Jose – Verified Customer March 08, 2016
Good service and they are attentive.by Verified Customer February 05, 2016
Service is so good but unfortunately prices is a bit high.by Frances – Verified Customer December 09, 2015
Vic is a very honest trustworthy mechanic,which I have found over the years something real hard to find.He took his time to explain what I needed to do with my Mini Cooper so that I could keep my Mini running in great condition for the years to come. He really cares about his work and making sure it's done correctly. His daughter who runs the front office and the other young woman were very kind and also took her time to explain what work would be done on my car and she keep me up to date with phone calls letting me know how my Mini was coming along and she always had a smile on her face. I could tell that this family really love their business and take a lot of pride in what they do and that the work is done correctly and this family business really does care about giving the customer excellent service. The price is right on for the work done, in fact you can't get a better deal anywhere else. I feel very Blessed to finally find a shop where I know I can take my mini for any future work.Show more reviews
Thank you for your thoughtful review. We are happy to know that you enjoyed your experience and look forward to having you back again soon.by Robert – Verified Customer December 04, 2015
Estimate much higher than expected, same price as dealership.
Robert, we hope that we are able to see you again soon. I know that we did our best to confirm what you needed to get you going as soon as possible. We strive to give you dealership quality with out the dealer price, if you got a better estimate let us know and we will try to make it up to you.by Melena – Verified Customer October 28, 2015
Great and friendly service.
Thank you Melena, it's always nice working with you as well.by George – Verified Customer October 23, 2015
Great friendly service.by Derek – Verified Customer September 04, 2015
Great shop, they helped me out of a jam with my car.
We are glad we were able to help you out. We look forward to seeing you again soon.Show more reviewsby Verified Customer June 24, 2015
Good, fast, and reliable service.by Norma – Verified Customer June 05, 2015
I took my car cause it wouldnt start they said it was just a fuse .. they did a diagnistic to see what else needed to be repaired.. it came out to almost $1800. After a week the engine light came on and took it back, he wanted to charge me $80 to check what was wrong after just leaving the shop... he waived it and said it was because of the gas cap so he charged $40 to replace it after a week the engine light came out again... this should have been diagnose since the beginning.
Norma we can see how frustrating it may have been to see the check engine light come back on although I do remember your initial visit in April 2015 was due to the vehicle not starting. We were able to identify that the fuse that control the engine management was the cause of the vehicle not starting. Thankfully that was all it was and performed a courtesy inspection since it had been your first visit with us. We were able to identify many more concerns, one of them being the check engine light was present. We did go over the many reasons the check engine light could come on yet have no control over when parts fail. In the initial inspection when the codes were obtained there were no codes indicating there was an issue with the fuel system. We did notice there was a vacuum leak present due to the intake boots related to the check engine light at that time. Thankfully we were able to get the needed repairs covered by your insurance company so that there was minimal out of pocket expense to you. Although getting approval was difficult and took a little over a month but thankfully we got the go ahead. It is so important to make sure our customers are driving a safe and reliable vehicle that we are always willing to go the extra mile to help. When we got the call in July that the check engine light came back we did mention that we would be happy to check it and would waive the diagnostic if it were the same cause but later confirmed that this time it was related to a minor leak in the fuel system.We performed the necessary test and found only the fuel tank cap seal was worn causing the minor leak. The vehicle had been driven over 3,000 miles when you came back in and as much as we would love to foresee what may happen we are unable to. If it were something we missed we strive to do our best to take responsibility to make it right. Please don't hesitate to give us a call next time there is a concern. Our customers are important to us and we work hard to provide you the best service every time.by Daryl – Verified Customer May 04, 2015
After spending more than $1000.00 to repair a coolant leak, had to have same problem repaired again only a few weeks later.
Daryl I apologize in advance if I'm mistaken but in looking back we recall a problem with the battery system as well as a coolant leak. I don't see a record when you came back in. I hope I'm responding to the correct customer if I am we did everything possible to get you underway as quickly as possible due to outcome of our inspection and then finding out some of the parts for the battery system were special order. In reference to the cooling system we honor our warranty of 2y/24m so if you had to replace the same part at a different facility I will be happy to review and possibly provide you with a credit. In cases like these we would like the opportunity to make things right but we understand that sometimes location and/or time may not allow. If I have the wrong customer then I apologize and would like to invite you to give us a call so that I can make it right. Our customers are important and want to ensure you get taken care of.by Dan – Verified Customer April 08, 2015
It's located in-town rather than driving over an hour to the dealer.by Jerrilynn – Verified Customer January 23, 2015
Very efficient, professional, and genuinely caring family business.
Jerri, we always love seeing you. You bring so much contagious positive energy that we don't like to see you go. Hope all is well.by Mark – Verified Customer November 12, 2014
They kept me apprised of progress via email and phone.Show more reviews
We thank you for the great feedback. Communication is key and are always working on keeping that one of our priorities.by Joe – Verified Customer November 05, 2014
Vic's is the only one that works on both my BMW and Mini. They have done an exceptional job for me and I will continue to use them and I have already recommend them to friends who own either of these makes.
We appreciate the recommendation Joe. It humbles me to see so many customers like yourself recommend us to friends and family. As a family owned business I understand how important it is to make sure family is taken care of properly. So again we thank you for your continued friendship with us.by Karen – Verified Customer October 17, 2014
Communication was horrible. They kept my car over a weekend for an oil change! They couldn't complete some of the electrical work and told me to go back to the dealer. I might as well just stay with the dealer as Vic's charges only slightly less than dealer prices and apparently can't do dealer certified type work.
Our sincere apology Karen for that visit. I remember how difficult it was in trying to get a hold of you. I do remember an earlier conversation where you mentioned needing your vehicle back. I tried the email we had on file as well but was unsuccessful. Our intention was not to keep it as long as we did but we really wanted to find an answer for one of the concerns you had during your oil service visit. It is not likely that an issue goes unaddressed but after doing as much research and testing that we did, the information was leading us to a process that only the dealer could achieve so to avoid any additional & unnecessary diagnostic fees we felt that we should do whats right and refer you to them. I hope that we can be given another opportunity to assure you your vehicle is in good hands, all other visits with you have been great.by Tom – Verified Customer August 15, 2014
Always been pleased with help and work at Vic's.
Thank you Tom. We look forward to your next visit with us.by Dennis – Verified Customer August 08, 2014
Vic's has always been a quality, professional shop. The folks there are friendly, accommodating, organized, and thorough. They know their stuff and are fair priced as well.Show more reviewsby Jessica – Verified Customer August 07, 2014
Great service and great work.by Vickie – Verified Customer July 29, 2014
Great service.by Gerry – Verified Customer June 06, 2014
One of the only shops in the Antelope Valley that I can trust.
Thank You! Keeping your trust is important to us.by Jeff – Verified Customer May 23, 2014
Great service.by Tony – Verified Customer May 23, 2014
The front desk assistant is very unprofessional to the point it makes me not want to go back.Show more reviewsby Patricia – Verified Customer March 24, 2014
Vic's offers excellent service and reliability.by Verified Customer March 06, 2014
I found that the staff and Vic have been great and very cooperative, especially when you have an Emergency.
Cases like these are difficult enough so we try to make it as easy for you as possible. I'm glad we were able to assist you during this time.by Elena – Verified Customer March 04, 2014
They are a full service shop in the realist term. They are honest and reliable.by Raymond – Verified Customer February 10, 2014
Friendly, honest, expert staff, reasonable repair costs.by Kerri – Verified Customer February 03, 2014
Vic's Bimmer shop has been taking care of me and my cars for many years and I wouldn't go any where else!Show more reviewsby Tim – Verified Customer January 28, 2014
Vic's provides great customer service and is very knowledgeable on all problems with BMW vehicles.by Gregg – Verified Customer January 24, 2014
I like the service and price.by Jimmy – Verified Customer January 10, 2014
We have always had the best service from Vic and his crew.by Jesenia – Verified Customer January 09, 2014
I am always very happy with the service Provided.2 verified customers did not leave comments but provided these ratings:by Andreaby Fredde
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When a guy has a fetish to nail chicks in shitter stalls.
Scary Taves is a serious shitter hitter!
by J-Dawg April 07, 2005
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Top Definition
A gentleman who believes that the anus should not be an output device only.
What shitter hitter!
by Ian Chode April 02, 2003

subset: commoncrawl


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Win prizes, kudos, recognition! Enter AOP prestigious Photography Awards before 7 August
something you would see in a fashion magazine, nice work indeed
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Minecraft Is a Testing Ground for Human-AI Collaboration
Microsoft turns the popular game into an "AI Olympics."
Discover one of our 28 local entrepreneurial communities »
Be the first to know as we launch in new countries and markets around the globe.
Interested in bringing MIT Technology Review to your local market?
Microsoft turns the popular game into an "AI Olympics."
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This week's most thought-provoking papers from the Physics arXiv.
To create an affordable obstacle detection system for blind people, he began by simply asking them what they needed.
In one study, virtual reality did about as well as narcotics in reducing pain.
A new system developed at Oxford could turn any vehicle into a driverless one.
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Seven Pentagon supercomputers are getting ready to attack one another.
Despite three deaths, a trial for a powerful cancer treatment has been cleared to resume.


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Our goal with this section of our website is to provide both measures for which external agencies hold us accountable as well as measures that show how we are performing in key components of quality: patient survival, quality of care, patient safety, efficient care and patient centeredness.
We are presenting this information as accurately as possible: We are not creating any new measures or changing the scale, format or target to make ourselves look better or worse. And we'll be clear about what's good and what isn't.
Why make this information public? Because we believe that our patients have the right to understand the quality of care we provide, what we are doing well and where we need to do better. We may not always look good, but it is our belief that honesty, and an honest effort to improve when and where we need to, makes for better care.
UK HealthCare is committed to the pillars of academic health care—research, education and clinical care. Dedicated to the health of the people of Kentucky, we will provide the most advanced patient care and serve as an information resource. We will strengthen local health care and improve the delivery system by partnering with community hospitals and physicians. We will support the organization's education and research needs by offering cutting edge services on par with the nation's best providers.
The vision of UK HealthCare is to achieve national recognition as a Top 20 public academic health center, providing optimal multidisciplinary health care and developing advanced medical therapeutics for the people of Kentucky and surrounding regions.
UK HealthCare annual reports
UK HealthCare news
Read our quality data
UK HealthCare has established the Office for Value & Innovation in Healthcare Delivery (OVIHD), aiming to provide value-based care across our health system. By re-engineering care delivery using expertise from industry, UK HealthCare will undergo a transformation of its delivery system to optimize care coordination for patients. Read more »
In May 2016, the Music Therapy Program at UK HealthCare welcomed Katie Goforth as the music therapist dedicated to patients in the Kentucky Children's Hospital.
Terry Lennie, a College of Nursing professor who studies interventions to treat and prevent heart disease, was inducted to the International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame on July 23.
UK College of Health Sciences Professor Karen Skaff was recently named the Alfred C. Fones Award recipient by the American Dental Hygenists Association.
The 11th Annual Miracle Treat Day gives Central Kentuckians another great reason to beat the heat with a DQ Blizzard on July 28.
In a study of 48 adults with a diagnosis of early dementia or mild cognitive impairment, almost half reported positive changes in life outlook and quality of life, countering the assumption that this diagnosis would have a uniformly negative impact.
Dr. Andrew James, urologic oncologist at the UK Markey Cancer Center discusses bladder cancer's risk factors, screening, and treatment in Sunday's Herald Leader.
The University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center has received nearly $200,000 in funding for a new two-year training program designed to prepare UK undergraduate students from Appalachian Kentucky to pursue cancer-focused careers. Administrators of the program are now recruiting applicants.
Dr. William Stoops, associate professor in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, has been appointed editor of Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, a journal published by the American Psychological Association.
Budding scientist Jenna VanRooyen credits her mentors in the Rabchevsky lab for her success, which includes an NIH grant and a top award from the National Neurotrauma Society.
In a commentary published in the July 22 issue of Science, Nathan Vanderford, assistant director for research at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center, describes his path to landing a nontraditional faculty position at UK. Science is one of the world's most prestigious research journals.
Using eye-catching props and easy-to-understand facts, Markey Community Outreach Director Melissa Hounshell travels the state to educate Kentucky's children on cancer, encouraging them to take an interest in their parents' health as well as their own.
Beginning in September, the UK College of Dentistry will offer a six-month Dental Assistant Program to help interested individuals gain valuable experience and training for this vital role on the dental team.
In 2014, the University of Kentucky Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry received funding from the state to develop a model clinic for adolescent substance use treatment, Adolescent Health and Recovery Treatment and Training (AHARTT). Part of the spectrum of treatment provided through this clinic includes Youth Peer Support Specialists.
The Perinatal Assistance and Treatment Home (PATHways), an interdisciplinary opioid maintenance program at UK HealthCare, helps women break free of addiction during a transformative time in their lives — pregnancy.
Sometimes tears are not a bad thing. When our eyes don't produce enough tears, it leads to a condition called dry eye syndrome. Dr. Seema Capoor, associate professor in the UK Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, discusses possible causes and how to treat it.
When he became director in 2014 Williams had a clear vision for the center: applying research to optimize care.
Ann Hanley was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at 49. But instead of letting fear get her down, she's focusing her energy on raising money to fund Parkinson's research at UK.
A tiny electronic device implanted behind the ear and just under the skin will allow a nearly deaf person to hear speech and interpret sounds. Cochlear implantation is becoming increasingly common as a treatment for hearing impaired individuals in urban areas but utilization of cochlear implants lags far behind in Appalachian areas.
University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center's Dr. Rachel Miller is one of 13 recipients of this year's National Cancer Institute Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award.
Dr. John Ragsdale, an assistant professor in the UK Department of Medicine, has studied the effectiveness of training programs to teach doctors how to interpret emotions and expressions in their patients.
The Keeneland Concours d'Elegance returns to the grounds of Keeneland Racecourse this weekend with a display of exotic, rare and romanticized cars and other motor vehicles. Proceeds from the event benefit Kentucky Children's Hospital.
An innovative model of care for patients with chronic pain at the UK HealthCare Polk-Dalton Clinic has improved quality, adhered to prescription drug monitoring regulations, and satisfied both patients and their primary care providers.
Anticoagulation therapy can save lives for patients who have blood clots or are at high risk for them. Here are some anticoagulation basics to help you navigate the options.
Haircuts at Hair Nation Salon and Spa in Lexington on July 10 will raise funds to provide hair replacements for patients at the Kentucky Children's Hospital DanceBlue Hematology Oncology Clinic.
This overuse and resistance to antibiotics is a growing problem throughout the world and in the U.S.
Please note that the numbers shown do not take into account that different hospitals treat different sorts of patients. A community hospital such as UK Good Samaritan, for instance, tends to treat patients who are less sick, while academic medical centers such as UK Albert B. Chandler Hospital treat the most severely ill and injured patients. For this reason, these numbers should not be used to compare one hospital to another.
Please feel free to contact us if you have questions about any of the information you find here.


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Woman shot outside Boogie Down Bar & Grill
DENVER - Denver Police are investigating a shooting outside the Boogie Down Bar and Grill.
A sergeant told 7NEWS there was a disturbance inside the bar on Morrison Road near Sheridan Boulevard and Mississippi Avenue Thursday night. Then a woman was shot outside.
Denver Police said the victim was taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.
Police did not release any information about arrests or possible suspects.


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Education Without Authority?
You can also find this piece at our new Medium publication feed.
By Jennie Han
"Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable."
-- Hannah Arendt, "The Crisis in Education"
Education carries a heavy burden for Arendt. As in politics, we declare our love for the world, both or own and the world of future generations. To say that education is in crisis, then, is for Arendt not to lament the fact that "Johnny can't read." It is to acknowledge a generalized dissatisfaction with and alienation from the world that has us say to our children, "[i]n this world even we are not very securely at home….You must try to make out as best you can; in any case you are not entitled to call us to account. We are innocent, we wash our hands of you." So alienated, one might still be qualified to teach if one has knowledge of subjects, but one has no authority to do so. For without assuming the responsibility for the world that is necessary to say to the child, "This is our world," there can be no relationship of teaching and learning between the adult who is to introduce the child to the world and the child who is developing into adulthood to accept this responsibility in turn.
Amor Mundi 12/27/15
Hannah Arendt considered calling her magnum opus Amor Mundi: Love of the World. Instead, she settled upon The Human Condition. What is most difficult, Arendt writes, is to love the world as it is, with all the evil and suffering in it. And yet she came to do just that. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection. Above all it means the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
Every Sunday, The Hannah Arendt Center Amor Mundi Weekly Newsletter will offer our favorite essays and blog posts from around the web. These essays will help you comprehend the world. And learn to love it.
'May I Buy Your Groceries?'
For the holidays, Catherine Wilkinson, aka Bosscook, offers an inspiring idea for gift-giving: "Rather than buy ourselves and our young adult children gifts this Christmas, we decided to walk the walk. You know. That walk where you stop indulging yourself with increasingly frivolous items and actually reach out to help others not as fortunate. We bought several Walmart gift cards with funds we would have used to buy our gifts for one another and our kids. Then our daughter and daughter-in-law (who is pregnant with twins, our 10th and 11th grandchildren, so yes, we have more than enough blessings in our life), Mr. Wilkinson and I went to our local Walmart yesterday, a beautiful Sunday morning. Not quite knowing how to do what we wanted to do, just praying we'd get it right and not embarrass anyone or get arrested. Our girls decided on an approach, took the gift cards, and my husband and I stood at a distance, ready to help if needed. The girls walked along and watched the check-out lines, and when they felt a tug at their kind hearts, they went up to people ready to check out and asked, 'May I buy your groceries?' The initial responses were ones of shock and disbelief. No one was rude, or dismissive. They just wanted to know why. The girls answered that they were part of a family who decided this was the way they wanted to celebrate Christmas. Then a few asked if they were with a church or an organization. No, the girls said, we are just a regular family and this is our gift to you! No strings attached! From us! Then the miracles came. The first one, a young Mom, with a cart of food and just a couple of tiny presents for her little son, broke down in sobs, confiding that she 'didn't know how I could afford any of this'. Her hugs and her tears washed away all the nervousness our girls felt at first. They helped her bag her groceries and they all held one another for a long time, before this young woman left the store, trying hard not to sob." There are more miracles here that will warm your heart. h/t WRM. --RB
Unmasking America
Aziz Rana writing in n+1 takes on the American Creed, which he argues is simply inconsistent with racial equality. "The intensity of this paradox--of superficial equality amid widespread deprivation--has sustained a year of protest. It has drawn activists' attention toward questions not of intentional bias--the Bull Connors of the 1960s, the Donald Trumps of today--but of structural racism. This turn to structure is evident everywhere. Where Ta-Nehisi Coates once presented Obama's election as the culmination of the civil rights movement, completing the legacies of Martin and Malcolm, he now calls for reparations for slavery and presents white supremacy as constitutive of the republic. For Coates and countless others, racism is now about deep-rooted hierarchies, the living legacies of centuries of economic exploitation and state-sanctioned violence that have endured despite the end of legal discrimination. The emphasis on structure speaks to a remarkable development in American public discourse. Today, the 'creedal' story of national identity--according to which the United States has been committed to the principle that 'all men are created equal' from the time of its founding, and our history can be viewed as a steady fulfillment of this idea--finds itself in profound crisis. This story has been unmasked, not for the first time, by the problem of race. So has the vision for reform with which it is associated--the steady opening of equal opportunity to all. The creed is so central to American identity that it has become difficult to imagine an alternative, similarly grounded in a strong political tradition. Finding and defending such a tradition is the difficulty of the present moment, but also its promise." Rana's claim that racism demands we abandon the liberal American creed and attack the liberal structures of American society is one widely heard amidst the protests over police violence and college racism. It is, in the words of Shelby Steele in his new book Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country, part of a fundamental fallacy that sees America as an inherently evil country that was never actually a good or fair nation. Steele calls this argument "characterological evil:" namely, that the country's past sins have made all attempts at reform futile. It is also analogous to an ad hominem argument, one against the person or nation itself absent an argument. Such characterological arguments make "anti-Americanism a precondition for the nation's redemption from its past."
Rana's worry that America itself is fundamentally oppressive is, as he writes, based on the rhetorical strategy of 'unmasking.' Unmasking, as Peter Baehr writes in the latest issue of HA: The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center, "refers to a mode of exposure that accuses a person, argument or way of life of being fundamentally defective. It may be claimed, for instance, that a person is an imposter." For Rana, America has been unmasked as such a fake. It is not a country of freedom, equality, and justice but a nation built on the hypocrisies of racism, sexism, and economic oppression. Unmaskers argue that they see through illusions to a stark truth. As Baehr writes, "Unmaskers do not simply claim to see what others have missed; they claim to see through--a person or object. 'Things are not what they seem. They reveal their true meaning only when decoded in accordance with the knowledge of the initiated--at which point they make complete sense and everything falls into place in a universal scheme.'" Baehr traces unmasking back to the terror of the French Revolution: "Traitors," Robespierre urged, "must be unmasked and struck without pity." What unmaskers forget, he writes, is that the word 'person' is from the Latin 'persona' which is that which sounds through a mask. To be a person is always to wear a mask, to present oneself in public as a citizen or in a chosen role. All of us are hypocrites if we lay bare the hidden vices of our hearts. To demand that we strip off our mask and appear in public as naked selves is as impossible as it is totalitarian. It is a search for authenticity that can never be achieved except by a constant ratcheting up of the charge of hypocrisy so that today's radical unmasker is tomorrow's unmasked hypocrite. Once the process of unmasking asserts itself, there is no place for refuge. Which is why the demand that the American Creed be unmasked leads, inevitably, to the conclusion that America itself is evil and needs to be undone. That is the logic of Rana's argument that the American Creed has been unmasked. And it is the reason that Hannah Arendt repeatedly stated that once hypocrisy is unmasked, rage replaces virtue as the spirit of the people. --RB
A Public Voice for the World
The Hannah Arendt Center is now preparing our Fall 2016 conference, "How Do We Talk About Difficult Questions?: Race, Sex, and Religion on Campus." While college is a safe space for difficult questions, free and collegiate inquiry rests on rules of civility. We raise our hands to speak, listen to those who disagree, and make sacred the space of collective inquiry. Asking difficult questions in a respectful way structures our search for truths and prepares us for the activity of democratic citizenship. The emergence of the seemingly unbridgeable divides separating republican and democratic truths, black and white truths, male and female truths, secular and religious truths is that nearly all of us are increasingly so committed to the absolute truth of our partial story of reality that we find opposing truth and opposing stories existentially threatening. At a moment when difficult questions are evacuated from public spaces, we must strive to maintain the idea of college and university life as a safe space for difficult and contested thinking. Bringing together academics, business people, artists, and intellectuals, we ask the following: how can we protect the spirit of the university while honoring our unshakable commitment to justice and equality? Talking about hard questions of race, sex, and religion takes courage today. When Arendt writes, "Courage liberates men from their worry about life for the freedom of the world," she says that the imagination of and preservation of the common world is of greater meaning than our individual lives. And when she continues, "Courage is indispensable because in politics not life but the world is at stake," she reiterates that all who engage in politics must strive to act in ways that elevate the glory of our common world above ourselves. One reason to keep returning to Arendt's writing and thinking is because she so forcefully reminds us that the public world is always endangered and in need of political actors with the courage to act and speak in ways that are surprising, captivating, and unnerving. The Hannah Arendt Center is dedicated to bringing Arendt's bold and provocative style of thinking about important political and ethical questions to a broad audience. You can read about what we do here. Please consider becoming a member and supporting our work. --RB
Whither the Annotation?
S. Brent Plate considers what the role of marginalia is in a digital world: "The margins are sites of engagement and disagreement: between text and reader and, to stretch it tenuously further, between author and reader. From Talmudic studies to legal amendments, margins have been the places where texts have been kept alive--alive because they've been read and responded to. Modern democratic society itself, which arguably would have been impossible without books and print, is based on interactions that both produce, and are produced by, a collapsing of power. This occurs not just through the mass production and consumption of literature, pamphlets, and the news of the world--making knowledge accessible to more people--but engagement with the production of knowledge. Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility' exalts the rise of the Letters to the Editor section of newspapers so that 'at any moment the reader is ready to become a writer.' Marginalia operates in a similar matter, turning readers into writers, and upsetting the hierarchy of the author as authority. How New Media alter and resituate these power dynamics is part of what is at stake in the current debate.... What we find in marginalia is not simply a place of intellectual disputation, two minds duking it out, but a site for the body to awaken from its long sleep and dispute the mind. In reality, reading is sensual: we read with our eyes, or in the case of braille and other practices, with our fingers. But the rational page (carefully kerned and serifed typeface, fully justified blocks of text) cuts off the sensate body, channeling our mindful intentions into its rectilinear prison, making us feel we have direct communication, jacked in. The rigid text has its uses, though messy bodies need not apply."
The Things on the Outskirts
In an interview, author Karl Ove Knausgaard discusses the importance of objects to his thinking: "When I wrote my last novel, I discovered how much goes on outside the narrative, or just on the outskirts of the story--objects and actions that aren't really stories but are still a part of everyday life. When I write, I'm just as concerned with creating some kind of presence as I am with narrating a story. It's not a stylistic trait, but a longing of some kind, and it's that presence I seek when I write and when I read. I'm not really present in the real world, obviously. I'm closed off inside myself. Ironically, the only way I can feel present, feel that I belong, is through writing, which is really about turning away from the world. In these texts I'm not directing attention to my own presence but to the presence of objects. I've wanted to look at everything in the same manner, whether it's high or low, ugly, bad, good, beautiful. A beer bottle receives the same attention as the concept of love--as much space and as much care. I'm interested in the idea of looking at things without hierarchy, in the world as it is before we start categorizing it."
The Entitlement of Victims
Arthur C. Brooks writes in the NY Times that we are becoming a culture of victimization and that this trend matters. "So who cares if we are becoming a culture of victimhood? We all should. To begin with, victimhood makes it more and more difficult for us to resolve political and social conflicts. The culture feeds a mentality that crowds out a necessary give and take--the very concept of good-faith disagreement--turning every policy difference into a pitched battle between good (us) and evil (them). Consider a 2014 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which examined why opposing groups, including Democrats and Republicans, found compromise so difficult. The researchers concluded that there was a widespread political 'motive attribution asymmetry,' in which both sides attributed their own group's aggressive behavior to love, but the opposite side's to hatred. Today, millions of Americans believe that their side is basically benevolent while the other side is evil and out to get them. Second, victimhood culture makes for worse citizens--people who are less helpful, more entitled, and more selfish. In 2010, four social psychologists from Stanford University published an article titled 'Victim Entitlement to Behave Selfishly' in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The researchers randomly assigned 104 human subjects to two groups. Members of one group were prompted to write a short essay about a time when they felt bored; the other to write about 'a time when your life seemed unfair. Perhaps you felt wronged or slighted by someone.' After writing the essay, the participants were interviewed and asked if they wanted to help the scholars in a simple, easy task. The results were stark. Those who wrote the essays about being wronged were 26 percent less likely to help the researchers, and were rated by the researchers as feeling 13 percent more entitled. In a separate experiment, the researchers found that members of the unfairness group were 11 percent more likely to express selfish attitudes. In a comical and telling aside, the researchers noted that the victims were more likely than the nonvictims to leave trash behind on the desks and to steal the experimenters' pens. Does this mean that we should reject all claims that people are victims? Of course not. Some people are indeed victims in America--of crime, discrimination or deprivation. They deserve our empathy and require justice. The problem is that the line is fuzzy between fighting for victimized people and promoting a victimhood culture. Where does the former stop and the latter start? I offer two signposts for your consideration."
Katharine Schwab cuts into the history of rock-paper-scissors: "The earliest known references to finger-flashing games are a tomb-wall painting at the Beni Hasan burial site in Middle Egypt (dated to around 2000 B.C.E.) and centuries later on a scroll from Japan. Versions of rock-paper-scissors can be found in cultures around the world, but outside of North America it remains most ubiquitous in Asia. In Japan, the game is called jan-ken or jankenpon, and uses the same rock-paper-scissors finger positions, though a variation features a tiger, a village chief, and the village chief's mother (who beats the chief). In Indonesia, the game is earwig-man-elephant, where the earwig overcomes the elephant by crawling up his trunk and eating his brain. But whatever the interpretation, the game is pervasive, combining everyday utility with basic human psychology. People tend to think that it's a random (and thus fair) way of making trivial decisions, but the game's simple structure still allows for an element of strategy, making it an unlikely but fitting subject for a worldwide competition. While your best chance of winning would be to choose your moves completely at random, humans are naturally terrible at behaving randomly. Well-trained players who think of the game as a psychologically driven battle can use this fact and other influencers to increase their chances of winning. Ironically, children are actually the most difficult to play against because they're the most random in their choices, while adults who are inclined to overthink their moves tend to be more predictable, Simmons says. More skilled players use gambits, which are pre-decided sets of three throws that help reduce the chance that you give away your next move. The Great Eight Gambits, the most common strategies employed, have names like 'Bureaucrat' (for three papers used in a row) and 'Fistful o' Dollars' (for rock, paper, paper). 'It's about choice and the power of suggestion,' Simmons says. 'The game itself almost disappears and it becomes this rarified force of will between two competitors when they both know what they're doing.'" Best two out of three?
Levinas' Absent God
On the 20th anniversary of Emmanuel Levinas's death, the Levinas Society is making available for one week the new documentary film "Absent God - Emmanuel Levinas and Humanism of the Other." What better way is there to spend your holiday?
Santa Also Rises
Finally, The New Yorker reaches way back into its archives to find James Thurber doing his best Ernest Hemingway impression: "It was the night before Christmas. The house was very quiet. No creatures were stirring in the house. There weren't even any mice stirring. The stockings had been hung carefully by the chimney. The children hoped that Saint Nicholas would come and fill them. The children were in their beds. Their beds were in the room next to ours. Mamma and I were in our beds. Mamma wore a kerchief. I had my cap on. I could hear the children moving. We didn't move. We wanted the children to think we were asleep."
Featured Events
HAC Virtual Reading Group - Session #16
HAC members at all levels are eligible to participate in a monthly reading group led online via a telecommunication website by Roger Berkowitz, Director of the Hannah Arendt Center.
For questions and to enroll in our virtual reading group, please email David Bisson, our Media Coordinator, at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Friday, January 8, 2015
Bluejeans.com, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Vita Activa - The Spirit of Hannah Arendt
Roger Berkowitz, Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center, will be participating in the opening of the new film, VITA ACTIVA - THE SPIRIT OF HANNAH ARENDT, Directed by Ada Ushpiz, taking place at the Film Forum in New York City.
About the Film: A brand new documentary about one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. The German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt caused an uproar in the 1960s by coining the subversive concept of the "Banality of Evil" when referring to the trial of Adolph Eichmann, which she covered for the New Yorker magazine. Her private life was no less controversial thanks to her early love affair with the renowned German philosopher and Nazi supporter Martin Heidegger. This thought provoking and spirited documentary, with its abundance of archival materials, offers an intimate portrait of the whole of Arendt's life, traveling to places where she lived, worked, loved, and was betrayed, as she wrote about the open wounds of modern times. Through her books, which are still widely read and the recent release of Margarethe von Trotta's biopic Hannah Arendt (also a Zeitgeist Films release) there is renewed interest in Arendt throughout the world, especially among young people who find her insights into the nature of evil, totalitarianism, ideologies, and the perils faced by refugees, more relevant than ever. Watch the Trailer.
Wednesday, April 8, 2016
Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street West of 6th Ave., New York, NY, Time TBA
On OCTOBER 20-21, 2016 we will host our ninth annual fall conference: "How Do We Talk About Difficult Questions?: Race, Sex and Religion on Campus". We'll see you there!
Thursday and Friday, October 20 and 21, 2016
Olin Hall, Bard College, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
From the Arendt Center Blog
This holiday week on the Blog, Laurie Naranch explains how rage may authorize momentary violence as a legitimate, if for Arendt, antipolitical response to injustice in the Quote of the Week. Also, German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno reflects on what it means to think anymore in this week's Thoughts on Thinking.
Amor Mundi 5/17/15
Hannah Arendt considered calling her magnum opus Amor Mundi: Love of the World. Instead, she settled upon The Human Condition. What is most difficult, Arendt writes, is to love the world as it is, with all the evil and suffering in it. And yet she came to do just that. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection. Above all it means the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
Every Sunday, The Hannah Arendt Center Amor Mundi Weekly Newsletter will offer our favorite essays and blog posts from around the web. These essays will help you comprehend the world. And learn to love it.
Death today has been medicalized and marginalized. But this has not always been the case. To illustrate, Deborah Lutz has explored the way the Victorians approached death and has found a much different and worthy approach to the dying body. "What I came to realize was that the Victorians cared about the mortal body; its very mortality mattered profoundly to them. Today we try to deny the body's movement toward death, its inevitable decay. The Victorians, instead of fearing the process of dying and the corpse, felt reverence. These were stages in the life of a beloved body and should be treasured. Indeed, the image of the corpse was worthy of fixing with the art of the death mask, painting or photography. A snippet of hair was often turned into jewelry. What was beautiful--and tragic, but more lovely for all that--was the body's ephemerality, its being always on the way to disappearing. The Victorians recognized that death's presence was woven into the texture of life, giving that life one of its essential meanings. Religion, of course, played a role in this attitude. Evangelical revivals early in the 19th century reinvigorated the tradition of the good death, in which God called believers to him. Even the sinful might be saved in the end, and this salvation could be seen in the face of the dying and heard in their words. Dying was something to be watched--a triumph even.... What we have lost is not only a savoring of ephemerality, but also an appreciation of the way that time marks the body. We try too hard to keep the terminally ill alive because we can't admit to finality. This has begun to change with the rise of the hospice movement and the work of a handful of artists, like Ishiuchi Miyako and Sophie Calle, who are interested in documenting the dying of loved ones. Even so, the philosopher Walter Benjamin's lament in the 1930s about death still rings true. By avoiding the sight of the dying, he felt, one misses the moment when the meaning of a life is completed and illuminated in its ending. The denial of death then leads to the demise of the art of storytelling. He called his contemporaries 'dry dwellers of eternity' because they 'live in rooms that have never been touched by death.'"
Jeffrey E. Stern reports on a recent botched execution in Oklahoma and on the source of the problem, namely, the difficulty of finding the right drugs: "What many people don't realize, however, is that choosing the specific drugs and doses involves as much guesswork as expertise. In many cases, the person responsible for selecting the drugs has no medical training. Sometimes that person is a lawyer--a state attorney general or an attorney for the prison. These officials base their confidence that a certain drug will work largely on the fact that it has seemed to work in the past. So naturally, they prefer not to experiment with new drugs. In recent years, however, they have been forced to do so... The problems began at a pharmaceutical plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The Food and Drug Administration discovered that some of the drugs made there were contaminated and in April 2010 sent the manufacturer, Hospira, a warning letter. Hospira stopped producing, among other drugs, a barbiturate called sodium thiopental. No other company was approved by the FDA to make sodium thiopental, which was the anesthetic of choice for almost all of the states that carried out executions." Stern doesn't editorialize. But the horrific facts of the case themselves seem to ask whether or not this punishment fits any crime.
Russell Jacoby is critical of the academic fashion for studies of objects, books on golf balls, paper clips, and doorknobs. This kind of microscopic approach can be done well--Jacoby offers the excellent example of the Sigfried Giedion's 1948 Mechanization Takes Command. But in the current iteration of object studies, Jacoby discerns an empty, consumerist, apolitical desire expression of exhaustion. "The tendencies here reflect new academic fashions that seem to move in two opposite directions--fields get larger and subject matter smaller. We have new fields of global studies or material culture--allied to object theory--which seem to cover everything; but they frequently serve as licenses to study very small things. The connections, in any case, between larger fields and microstudies are hardly addressed. A recent issue of the Journal of Material Culture, for instance, has an article on energy shortages in an African city ('Infrastructure turned suprastructure: Unpredictable materialities and visions of a Nigerian nation') and the incompatible standards of electrical plugs in Western Europe ('Plugging in: Power sockets, standards and the valencies of national habitus'). There is nothing wrong with this--except that after all the theoretical panting we are left gawking at unrelated items in the display case of history. For all the references to Lukacs, object study bespeaks reification, turning social relations into things. Perhaps an awkward French translation for reification, 'chosification'--'thingification' in English--captures something of Lukacs' concept. Historical material subject to potential change gets transmuted into things subject to passive viewing."
Andrea DenHoed applauds an undergraduate design class project which is aimed at alleviating the problem of homelessness in New York City: "Perhaps it's fanciful to be discussing beautiful design in the face of horror stories about the city's neglected, dilapidated shelters. Or perhaps the project of reconceptualizing what it means to house the homeless goes hand in hand with the project of finding sustainable approaches to homelessness. (In an area where the best practices seem wholly inadequate to the problem at hand, and where departures from orthodoxy--such as a Utah experiment that simply gave homeless people houses--can be notably fruitful, the idea of radical reconceptualization is particularly attractive.) But the ability to conceive of and implement beautiful design with scarce resources is a great test of skill and talent, and it's worth wondering whether top-tier designers would even be interested in these tight-budget contracts. ('My passion still goes to high-end residential spaces,' which allow for extensive customization, one student said.) But from the working designer's point of view, designing for a low-income demographic might offer another kind of freedom. Walz said that he's observed a growing discontent among interior designers with some of the changes that economic trends have wrought on their profession. 'Everybody has sort of had it with the sense of entitlement in certain parts of the population,' he said. 'But nobody wants to talk about it--you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you.'"
Corey Robin has a long essay on Hannah Arendt and the Eichmann controversy in the latest Nation. Robin's article has the virtue of length and breadth, allowing him to explore Arendt's critics and their errors but also to search for meaning in the recurring conflict. He asks, "What is it about this most Jewish of texts that makes it such a perennial source of rancor among Jews, and what does their rancor tell us about Jewish life in the shadow of the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel? What does the wrongness of Eichmann's readers reveal about the rightness of its arguments?" Robin takes on Arendt's critics on many levels, and in the end argues that Arendt's account of the Eichmann trial, was, as Arendt once wrote, "the groundwork for creating new political morals." Robin writes: "If evil comes in small steps, overcoming it, nearing goodness, also inheres in small steps. As Susan Neiman explains: 'Arendt was convinced that evil could be overcome only if we acknowledge that it overwhelms us in ways that are minute. Great temptations are easier to recognize and thus to resist, for resistance comes in heroic terms. Contemporary dangers begin with trivial and insidious steps.' Return the coat of collateral at night; take the eggs, not the bird; give a hunted Jew a truck. Jerusalem, then--not the Athens of the Greeks or the Königsberg of Kant--may be not only the site but also the spirit of Arendt's text. The intransigence of her ethic of everyday life, her insistence that every action matters, that we attend to the minutes of our practice--not the purity of our souls but the justness of our conduct and how it will affect things; if not now, when all is hopeless, then in the future, when all will be remembered--that kind of mindfulness is reminiscent, too, of the Hebraic ethos described by Arnold in Culture and Anarchy: 'this energy driving at practice' that 'would not let the Hebrew rest till, as is well known, he had at last got out of the law a network of prescriptions to enwrap his whole life, to govern every moment of it, every impulse, every action.' On December 21, 1962, two months before the first of her articles would appear in The New Yorker, Arendt gave her friend, the literary critic Alfred Kazin, a copy of the manuscript. The next day, he finished it. Overwhelmed by 'the stink of so much evil,' he went out for a walk. He 'walked and walked,' he writes in his journal, 'shivering to get the wintry pure air into my lungs.' Then he was hit by a realization: 'Hannah in her imperious yecke [a Yiddish term for German Jews] way is one of the just.' 'This is the lightning in her to which I always respond. She has the fundamental sense of value. She still believes in the right. Oddly enough, she still believes in the Ten Commandments.'"
In Search of a Human Humanities Conference
Christy Wampole poses a simple question many of us ask regularly: Why are academic conferences so boring? "We are weary of academic conferences. We are humanists who recognize very little humanity in the conference format and content. We have sat patiently and politely through talks read line by line in a monotone voice by a speaker who doesn't look up once, wondering why we couldn't have read the paper ourselves in advance with a much greater level of absorption. We have tried to ignore the lack of a thesis or even one interesting sentence in a 20-minute talk. Our jaws have hung in disbelief as a speaker tries to squeeze a 30-minute talk into a 20-minute slot by reading too fast to be understood. We have been one of two attendees at a panel.... Academic conferences are a habit from the past, embraced by the administrativersity as a way to showcase knowledge and to increase productivity in the form of published conference proceedings. We have been complicit. Until now. We believe it is time to ask ourselves: What is the purpose of the conference?" It is an excellent question, and one that should spur experimentation. Hannah Arendt Center Conferences are one attempt to re-imagine the tired academic conference by bringing academics together with students, the engaged public, artists, business people, and public intellectuals to explore present concerns in politics through the humanities. If you haven't attended one of our events, join us at our next conference: Private Life: Why Does it Matter?
Drugs, Babies, and Poverty in America
Reflecting on poverty and the unrest in Baltimore, Thomas B. Edsall offers a comparison with Muskogee, Oklahoma. "Today Muskogee, Okla., a city of 38,863, has nine drug treatment centers and a court specifically devoted to drug offenders. A search for 'methamphetamine arrest' on the website of the Muskogee Phoenix, the local newspaper, produces 316 hits. In 2013 just under two-thirds of the births in the city of Muskogee, 62.6 percent, were to unwed mothers, including 48.3 percent of the births to white mothers. The teenage birthrate in Oklahoma was 47.3 per 1,000; in Muskogee, it's 59.2, almost twice the national rate, which is 29.7. The Baltimore poverty rate is 23.8 percent, 8.4 points above the national rate, but below Muskogee's 27.7 percent. The median household income in Baltimore is $41,385, $11,661 below the $53,046 national level, but $7,712 above Muskogee's $33,664.... Why am I talking about Muskogee? Two reasons. The first is that the Baltimore riots have become a vehicle for conservatives to point to the city as an emblem of the failure of liberalism and the Democratic Party. The current state of affairs in Muskogee suggests that the left does not deserve exclusive credit for social disorder. The second reason is that worsening conditions in working-class white Republican communities indicate that the conservative moral agenda has not decisively won the battle for the hearts of America's youth.... If conservatives place responsibility on liberal Democrats, feminism and the abandonment of traditional family values for Baltimore's decay, what role did the 249 churches in and around Muskogee play in that city's troubles? The fact is that the poor and working classes of both races were not well equipped to adjust to changes in behavior driven by the sexual revolution and the second demographic transition--a collection of forces that are inexorably changing the family, marriage patterns and child rearing worldwide." On the left there is a conviction that racism lies behind the problems in Baltimore. On the right, they blame feminism, gay rights, and the loss of religious order. Edsall focuses on the similarities between the breakdown of society in both Baltimore and Muskogee, arguing that they reflect a more widespread demographic and moral collapse.
Jon Peterson remembers a moment just before the internet when fiction seemed like it might be intruding on truth, networks and hacking struck fear in the heart of the government, and the Secret Service thought it was protecting the public good by confiscating the manual to a tabletop role-playing game: "In hindsight, it's difficult to explain how esoteric computers appeared to the mainstream in the 1980s. The Internet existed--but even in 1990, few had any inkling of the prominence it would soon attain. It was just one of several communications networks, largely confined to university environments and overshadowed by closed monolithic information services like CompuServe. The web as such didn't exist either, and even functions like email and newsgroups depended on a patchwork of interconnected systems with limited standardization. The promise of an open, global network for commerce, entertainment, and personal communications remained in the realm of science fiction... But in 1990, the territory where these stories played out remained imaginary: the Internet lingered on the cusp of becoming habitable. Only a marginal community of hobbyists spent any significant fraction of their lives online, in various bulletin boards, newsgroups, and chat services where they communicated with like-minded explorers of the electronic frontier. Perhaps the closest you could get at that time to an experience of Gibson's future was in the role-playing games that tried to capture the flavor of that world, known by the genre label 'cyberpunk.'"
HAC Virtual Reading Group - Session #9
HAC members at all levels are eligible to participate in a monthly reading group led online via a telecommunication website by Roger Berkowitz, Director of the Hannah Arendt Center.
For questions and to enroll in our virtual reading group, please email David Bisson, our Media Coordinator, at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Bluejeans.com, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Thursday and Friday, October 15 and 16, 2015
The Hannah Arendt Center's eighth annual fall conference, "Privacy: Why Does It Matter?," will be held this year on Thursday and Friday, October 15-16, 2015! We'll see you there!
This week on the Blog, Hans Teerds reflects on how we understand architecture as a political concern and, by extension, understand Karl Jaspers' spatial approach to thinking in the Quote of the Week. We share a link to a broadcast by Deutschlandfunk Radio that provides some coverage of "Can We Have Some Privacy?," a conference we sponsored earlier this month. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of Charles Lindbergh, reflects on writing, thinking, and life in this week's Thoughts on Thinking. Bethany Zulick, a HAC student fellow, recounts artist Jeanne van Heeswijk's lecture for our spring 2015 "Courage to Be" dinner/speaker series. Finally, we appreciate two annotations Arendt made to her copy of "Black Reconstruction in America" in this week's Library feature.
On Tuesday, May 5th, we had the pleasure of talking with American choreographer and dancer Bill T. Jones and with members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company following a rehearsal for their upcoming world premiere performance, "Analogy/Dora: Tramontane." We will be uploading a recording of our Q&A session with Jones and company to our Vimeo account in the next few weeks. Please stay tuned!
Can America Be Fixed?
One of our Arendt Center members sent me this latest article from Fareed Zakaria. The numbers can be dizzying, but the basic thesis is one that we at the Arendt Center have been worrying about: Overspending on entitlements and debt are bringing about a situation in which the essential public role of government is being crowded out by its social demands. As Zakaria writes,
The continued growth in entitlements is set to crowd out all other government spending, including on defense and the investments needed to help spur the next wave of economic growth. In 1960, entitlement programs amounted to well under one-third of the federal budget, with all the other functions of government taking up the remaining two-thirds. By 2010, things had flipped, with entitlement programs accounting for two-thirds of the budget and everything else crammed into one-third. On its current path, the U.S. federal government is turning into, in the journalist Ezra Klein's memorable image, an insurance company with an army. And even the army will have to shrink soon.
No doubt government has the role of helping its citizens in need. And our modern entitlement programs are an essential part of a just polity. But we now risk misunderstanding government for insurance. So much so that, according to the a report by Third Way, in 2029 the US will spend as much on social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and debt payments as it takes in from taxes. Everything else we want to spend money on as a country will have to come from either higher taxes or further debt.
The real problem here is not economic so much as political. It is easy to say that the US has always been partisan and that it is very American to disdain government. Zakaria offers perspective, citing a 1975 report from the Trilateral Commission entitled The Crisis of Democracy, that predicted gloom in the United States and Europe. We should be aware of a human tendency to elevate our present difficulties into tragic flaws. And yet, simply because last time things worked out, we should not assume that they will this time as well.
What is different this time? While the United States remains a vibrant economy, its political system is increasingly broken. It is captured by special interests and addicted to debt. We spend $4 on our elderly population for every $1 we spend on our young. Schools are failing. We are cutting public pensions and obliterating private pensions outright with 401k savings programs that don't provide people enough money to live on. Bridges are falling. Our roads, railways, and airports are in disrepair. And our political debate is consumed with taxes and spending. I know wise cynics say politics is politics, but the present idiocy does seem different. We should never assume that just because it worked out the last time, it will again. There are moments of new occurrences in politics. And it is possible that our current political crisis really does portend something new.
At least the public seems to think so:
Anger with politicians and institutions of government is much greater than it was in 1975. According to American National Election Studies polls, in 1964, 76 percent of Americans agreed with the statement "You can trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always or most of the time." By the late 1970s, that number had dropped to the high 40s. In 2008, it was 30 percent. In January 2010, it had fallen to 19 percent.
Zakaria offers numbers upon numbers. I am sure some are more right than others. But the overall trend is undeniable. His essay is more than worth a read.


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Coney Island Hot Dog Sauce
Total Time
Prep 10 mins
Cook 45 mins
I was told this is "The Original" Coney Island Hot Dog Sauce recipe from Flint, Michigan. Enjoy!
Ingredients Nutrition
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 1 teaspoon margarine
- 1 1⁄2 lbs lean ground beef
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- salt and pepper
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon prepared mustard
- 1 (6 ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 (6 ounce) can water
- 5 hot dogs
- Combine everything except weiners and simmer until thick-do not brown meat first.
- Grind the weiners and add to pot.
- Stir and Cook 15 minutes longer.
- Serve over hot dogs on buns and offer onions.
Most Helpful
I followed the recipe as written and used Nathan's hot dogs. I served it at a cook-out and the reaction was not good. In fact, we went to the grocery store and bought a can of sauce to replace this disaster. I gave it 2 stars since one person did like it.
This is a good recipe for the kind of Coney Island Dogs I grew up with in Illinois. We add a bit more mustard (I like mine mustardy), some worcester sauce and occasionally some ketchup. I also just whiz up the onions, garlic and 1 hot dog and throw it all in at the beginning, instead of waiting to put in the dog later. Putting in the ground up hot dog into the sauce is a must though.<br/>Update 11th Jan 2014, just had a brainwave and added a bit of pickle juice to this - yum! Wish I had thought of it earlier. This is still my go-to Coney Island dog sauce recipe.
Haven't tried it yet but to answwer Bruce ,yes,the original coney is from New York. This recipe is from "The Original Flint Coney Island",an old coney restaurant in downtown Flint.It had a horseshoe shaped counter with stools around a central cooking/serving areas.It's been gone for many years now. I hope this sauce is close to the one I remember.


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Yorkshire Artspace Exchange Place Studios
Image; Donna Brewins' studio at Exchange Place (Gemma Thorpe for Our Favourite Places)
Exchange Place Studios is our latest city centre studio complex in a stunning 6 floor Art Deco building. The fascinating history of the building is explored by historian Amanda Marshall in 'The Three Lives of a Sheffield Icon', downloadable on the right of the page.
The building is on Exchange Street in historic Castlegate area of Sheffield. Facing on to Victoria Quays, Exchange Place Studios are a five minute walk to the train station, close to most city centre bus routes and have limited contract parking in the basement. The Castlegare area is currently undergoing a complete transformation, with the demolition of Castle Market and the revealing of the remains of Sheffield Castle.
The 62 studios have beautiful big windows to the North, South, East and West with views across the city. The building is warm and toasty thanks to being on the District Energy Network.
Facilities: 24/7 access, FREE WiFi throughout, three staircases (one is very wide), passenger lift, loading bay to the side, communal sinks on each floor, project space, education space, common room and kitchen on the ground floor, office which is open Monday to Friday 9.30am-4pm for deliveries/collections and enquiries (Thursdays 11am-4pm).
Studio availability is updated regularly on the Homepage.
Maps of each studio site can be found by clicking on the 'Contact' tab at the top of the page.


text:
Teacher trainer and curriculum consultant Anne Jolly calls upon a variety of sources in this blog post to explore the gender gap in the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Chevron executive Blair Blackwell cites a lack of role models as one possible reason, and neurologist Nisha Cooch says learning differences also may play a part.
Full Story:MiddleWeb


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Pigtopiaby Kitty Fitzgerald
View All Available Formats & Editions
Society has rejected Jack Plum. Born/em>/em>/em>/em>
Hailed as a "tour de force" (Los Angeles Times) and a "surprisingly sweet story" (Entertainment Weekly), Kitty Fitzgerald's Pigtopia is a spellbinding debut, featuring one of the most singular characters to come along since Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Society has rejected Jack Plum. Born with a disfigurement, he is labeled either a monster or an imbecile by his abusive mother and thoughtless neighbors. But Jack has created a haven, his "pigtopia," a shelter where Jack hides from the world with his beloved pet pigs. Then Jack meets Holly Lock, a sensitive young teenager who lives nearby, and offers her a piglet. Together they forge an unlikely and beautiful friendship, until society and fate intervene and Jack's secret world is threatened by forces beyond his control.
In language of stunning beauty, Kitty Fitzgerald has created a startling original world with characters that will capture your imagination and your heart.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
- 9781401360108
- Publisher:
- Miramax Books
- Publication date:
- 09/13/2006
- Edition description:
- Reprint
- Pages:
- 256
- Product dimensions:
- 5.18(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Read an Excerpt
2. Holly Lock�s World
Y�know when you wake up from a frightening dream, how the edges of everything are blurred, like the everyday picture of the world hasn�t had time to come back? Well, when I was there, standing so close to Jack Plum, it was like things had shifted just a little bit, like it wasn�t real time. All the way up the uneven path from the wood I felt as if I was wading in custard. I didn�t look behind at all, just kept going and I had a stitch by the time I got to the others.
It had all dropped back into place by then, no more fuzziness. Samantha�s bored face was sharp and clear. She lives on our street and she calls herself my best friend, but she�s always going off and trying out new girls or getting a boyfriend. Then I don�t see her outside school for weeks and weeks, till it all goes wrong, which it always does. She can get a bit clingy and people don�t like that -- sometimes it freaks me. Because she�s very pretty she gets away with a lot. Anyway, she was fed up with the skateboarding competition and wanted me to join a team for a game of cricket, but I shrugged her off. She�d just come back to me after getting really close to this girl Paula for a few weeks, so I didn�t see why I should do everything she wanted all of a sudden. I thought she was going to complain, as per usual, when I said I was going home, but she didn�t -- something just shifted behind her eyes like she was notching up my faults. Or maybe I was feeling a bit paranoid. My legs were unsteady and I wanted to be in my bedroom, alone, to think about what had happened so I didn�t give a damn.
I lay on the bed for about half an hour. My head was all sort of frantic, hopping about from one thing to another and I wasn�t sure if I was trembling because I was still scared or if it was just relief. It�s funny about dreams, how they make this world seem unreal and how you get similar feelings when you�re frightened, like it all goes out of focus for a few seconds. I mean, I was only meters away from our house when Jack Plum spoke to me, but I felt as if I was in some other unexpected place. Mam says I�ve got an �excess of imagination� as if it�s some sort of hormone imbalance but maybe it�s all just chemicals.
I calmed down slowly and then began asking myself questions. I mean, how did Jack Plum know when my birthday was? It was a surprise to me that he knew my name, as I didn�t even know he could talk. Then I thought, what if he�d been stalking me, like those nutters do, following me, digging through the rubbish in our bin, looking for information. But he didn�t try to stop me when I started to run, and he could have, the size of him.
When I felt better I got up and looked at myself in the long mirror. Too small, too skinny, no breasts, mad hair, doggy sort of a face, more like a lad than a lass. Why would anyone want to stalk me? I was a runt -- that�s what Dad used to call me before he took off. He said if I�d been born a dog, I�d have been dumped at birth. Charming. Mam always took my side when he went on about me not being pretty -- she reckoned she�d been a bit of a tomboy herself. But whenever she bought clothes for me they were always a bit too big or a bit too flouncy, like she was secretly willing me to grow up.
My room is great -- I chose the colors, the bedding and the blinds. Green�s my favorite color, all shades of green, but especially the darker ones like emerald, viridian, olive. I�ve got an en suite shower, bath, washbasin and toilet with sage green tiles. Next to the wide window there�s a wood and metal plant stand. This is cool because I want to work with plants when I leave school. Not sure what exactly I want to do, maybe train to be a botanist. What I�d really love is to discover a new species of plant and have it named after me. That�s why I go into Pardes Wood. It�s a very old coniferous forest and there�s always the chance of finding something unusual. I was on the hunt for a ghost orchid today, Epipogium aphyllum. It�s only been seen aboveground a couple of times in the past century and apparently likes the shady area below beech trees. There�s plenty of those in Pardes Wood, especially at this end. Saxifraga is one of my favorite plants, Saxifraga sarmentosa, better known as mother of thousands. The little plants at the end of the runners can grow as long as sixty centimeters. I�ve got one hanging above my bathroom window with the extensions drooping right down over the glass like old lace.
On my stand there�s Paphiopedilum callosum, slipper orchid; Ipheion uniflorum, spring starflower, the Froyle Mill variety which has beautiful purple flowers; Felicia amelloides, kingfisher daisy; and my absolute favorite, Pelargonium crispum, lemon geranium. It smells fabulous all the time but when you pinch and rub the leaves between your fingers it�s heavenly. It�s a very thirsty little beast but it doesn�t like being misted.
Mam got home while I was watering the plants. I heard her in the kitchen. I thought of telling her about Jack Plum but then remembered that I shouldn�t have been in the woods alone anyway.
It was pepperoni pizza for tea, followed by strawberry cheesecake. My choice. Mam and me take it in turns to choose what we eat. It�s really so she can make me eat proper food every other day, but that�s okay because I can choose anything I want on my days. And after tea on Fridays we always have a quiz and score points. I do one set of questions and she does another. The first to get twenty points is owed a favor, like she sometimes wants help with the ironing or I want some new music.
I like it at home. Just me and Mam, it�s relaxing, but I couldn�t let on at school -- everyone�s always moaning on about their parents splitting up, not giving enough pocket money, grounding them for no good reason or not letting them smoke, etc., etc. I�m lucky, I guess, because when Dad left things got better. No more of him griefing us all the time. Being on my own�s good but I�m not that comfortable in a group -- never know what to say -- unlike Samantha, who can rabbit on for hours. Sometimes I go through the motions, hang out, pretend I�m enjoying myself -- you�ve got to. If I owned up at school that I�d rather stay in and watch a video with my mam than hang around the dingy precinct sharing a bottle of cider and a joint, they�d think I was crazy.
Sometimes I do wonder why Dad didn�t love me enough to stay and why he�s never bothered to get in touch, not even at Xmas time or birthdays.
The pizzas were already in the oven when I got downstairs. I could smell the garlic. The radio was turned low on one of those seventies� hits stations and Mam was wiggling about to the music, trying to sing along with it, but she only knew a few of the lyrics, as usual. My mam knows the first lines of hundreds of songs and she doesn�t always get them right. She was a punk when she was a teenager. I�ve seen photos of her with a Mohawk hairdo and six earrings in each ear. Black clothes were all the rage then, and she�s saved some in a trunk in case the fashion comes back. Now she wears her hair long -- it�s dark and very glossy and she likes long skirts and bright-colored tops, sort of ageing hippie style.
I said hi and she replied, �Hello, sweetheart. Everything okay?�
�Yeah, fine,� I said. She handed me the knives and forks to lay the table, and just then one of her favorite songs came on the radio and she grabbed me and made me dance round the kitchen with her.
Does he love youWhen the song ended we were both out of breath. We dropped onto the kitchen chairs, laughing like mad, and I suddenly thought: I don�t care if I never grow up. Sometimes the other girls at school talk about boys and sex in a way that scares me and I just don�t feel like I�m ready for it. I�m not sure if it�s because of how I feel about my body not being developed or more than that.
how can you know
how can you tell if he loves you so
Is it in his eyes. . . .
Bodies are strange. What�s on the outside doesn�t always match up with what�s on the inside. Like I feel very mature for my age but I don�t look it, and Jack Plum looks like a monster but his voice was sweet and soft. He also looks like an adult but doesn�t act like one. Truth was, I had no idea how old he was or what was really wrong with him. I�d always been told to keep out of his way, to leave him alone, just like all the other kids round here. Usually, he stayed away from us as well.
�Mam, y�know Jack Plum,� I said casually. �Is he a boy or is he a man?�
�Why are you asking about Jack Plum?� she said.
�School project,� I replied. This is always the best tactic if Mam�s worried, as schoolwork is sacred in our house.
�A school project about Jack Plum?� she went on, as we sat down to eat. She obviously wasn�t convinced.
�Yeah, special needs and all that, y�know.� Only a small lie.
�Oh,� she said, �okay. Well, I�d probably say he�s neither a man or a boy -- he�s a mixture of both.�
I tried to concentrate on eating for a while, but my curiosity kept niggling at me.
�What happened to Jack Plum? Was he born like that, with that massive head, or did he have an accident?�
�He was born that way.�
�Is he dangerous, mam?�
�It�s difficult,� she said after a pause.
�What is?�
�Well, nobody really knows what�s wrong with Jack Plum.�
�Has he ever done anything bad?�
She looked right at me and her face was sort of sad. �No, Holly,� she said, �I don�t think Jack Plum�s ever done anything wrong.�
�So he�s not dangerous, then?�
�Is this really for a project?�
�Yes,� I insisted. Only way to get a straight answer.
�He�s never been in trouble as far as I know and I don�t think he�s dangerous, Holly, but you never can tell. I�ve not seen much of him since he was a boy, because he hides himself away, as you know, but I just don�t think you can ever be really sure with people like Jack Plum. I mean, he�s been alone with his mother all this time and she�s a very unpleasant woman. Okay?�
�D�you know her, then, Mrs. Plum?�
�No, not really. She�s lived round here all her life, but she�s older than me and -- �
�What about the dad? Where�s he at?�
�Enough questions for now. Time for my bath. We�ll have the pudding later, okay?�
It was my turn to wash up, so I tuned in to Radio 1 and listened to the charts. Mam came back wearing her dressing gown, looking shiny and hot. She cheered up during the quiz because she loves cheesecake and she scored twenty points. When we watched TV, sitting together on the big sofa, she hugged me tight until it was time to do my homework. Biology and French, not too mind-numbing.
It was dark when I�d finished. I stared out at the street and saw Colin Driver and his lot hanging around, trying to look cool with tabs hanging out of their mouths and baseball caps pushed up. Bloody Chavers. Then I went downstairs to say good night and do Mam�s evening ritual with her.
Before Gran and Grandad Logan went to live in Canada they gave us loads of stuff, and one thing Mam loves is this old tarot pack. She says it was bought in China over a hundred years ago by some relative who was in the merchant navy. The pictures are really beautiful, but you have to be careful because they�re hand painted. Anyway, every night Mam lays the twenty-two cards of the major arcana out face-down, and picks one card. This is supposed to give her guidance on how best to act the following day. She likes me to be with her when she does it because Gran Logan said I had �good energy,� whatever that means. It all seems a bit haphazard to me, but I wouldn�t say that to Mam.
She got the Death card. It always makes me shiver, even though Mam says it�s got nothing to do with death and everything to do with change. There�s this skeleton dressed in armor riding a white horse and holding a black flag with a rose and the roman numerals for thirteen on it. In front of him is a holy man and two females, one very young. In the background the sun is coming up behind a strange landscape with a tower on the horizon.
�It represents a positive change, Holly,� she tells me.
�Changing old ways of thinking. Thirteen was a lucky number in days gone by.� If you say so, Mam.
Back in my room Jack Plum kept drifting into my head. He�d always been there, in that scruffy house at the entrance to Pardes Wood, hiding himself away. We were all terrified of passing his house when we were little. Now, Colin taunts him sometimes, if his mates are around, but he�s still scared underneath. You can tell by his eyes and the way he always looks ready to run. It was definitely weird -- Jack Plum trying to talk to me like that, wishing me happy birthday, like there was some purpose to it, almost like he knew me.
In bed, I was restless, kept getting knotted up in the duvet, then getting cold when I threw it off. I got up while it was still dark to fetch some juice from the kitchen. My mouth felt sour and dry. Before I got back into bed I turned the lights off to peep out into the street. It was dark and gloomy in between the patches of light from the lampposts and I could almost imagine someone lurking in the shadows, watching. Then I saw Jack Plum, striding along the road, pulling a cart piled up high with bits of wood. He looked up at my window as he passed and raised his hand in a wave. As I dropped the curtain my body flashed with heat. For a few seconds I couldn�t tell if I was awake or dreaming.
Customer Reviews
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I was not sure when I started it but within a couple pages I was hooked. I could not put it down and thought about the theme for a long time. Do not judge a book by its cover.
When I first started reading, i didn't know if i'd be able to get through it. It took me a while to get use to Jack's language. I struggled trough the first chapter thinking I had made a mistake buying the book. But I do encourage you to read on. This book was nothing like i expected. It teaches us a lesson that is long over due. The amount of emotion you feel for each character is truly amazing. : )
This was a wonderful book. Not what I usually would read but very, very good. Gets your emotions going and makes you think about how cruel and judgemental we all can be.
This book was fantastic. It is partly written as a fairy tale, but there is most certainly a deep message carried in this well thought out story.
An imaginative, interesting, and poignant story of friendship, loyalty, and love. The first few pages made me nervous, as I was afraid I wouldn't be able to adjust to the 'other-worldly' voice of the main character. I had nothing to fear: by about the fifth page, I was sailing along effortlessly! A quirky, imaginative, and heart-wrenching novel, with characters you won't soon forget.
At first I wasn't sure whether I would like the book. By the end, I was overwhelmed to the point of crying. The pig language is difficult reading but so well done. It is a fairy tale and horror story combined. Whatever you read, don't miss this book.
I just finished the book last week & am sad that it is over. It was kinda hard to follow at first with Jack's pig talk- but then the change to the next chapter being 'Holly Lock's World' helped the flow easier. It makes you feel sorry for the way Jack is treated & is such a truth to our society that if you don't look normal you are treated like a freak. I highly recommend this -but get a box of Kleenex- I still want to cry thinking about the ending.
This novel is a classic. I'm willing to bet that in ten years time everyone will be wondering how it didn't win every literary prize going. The main characters, Jack and Holly are amazing and their pure, innocent relationship is full of wonder. Even when the going gets tough, their concern for each other shines through. The narrative is tight and compelling and the ending, although inevitably tragic, is written with great skill and love. If you don't read another book this year, read this one. It is full of compassion and written with great skill and love. Not to be missed.
This book has scorched my heart. The amazing human/pig language took my breath away, so much so that I couldn't put the book down. I read it in one sitting and ended up in floods of tears. This is a writer who knows the true potential of the human heart who can create unforgettable characters employ lyrical language and tell a brilliant story.
Pigtopia opens in a jumble of words that require reading aloud for comprehension. Once the reader becomes accustomed to the narrator, Jack's, language, the book becomes easier to handle. However, in an effort to build a rapid-moving plot, the book is hurried and dis-interested. There is a lot of Holly Lock that the reader does not get to see. Upon finishing the book, the reader feels as if they have been made the fool by archetypal characters and heavy-handed prose.
What caught my eye about this book was a review saying how it retells the classic story of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein so of course I had to buy it. Pigtopia is a truely touching story of human nature. It was very hard to put down. I found it very creative and insightful. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good read.
On the contrary to some wavering apprehensions made of Jack's character's language, I think it was of a genius way to induct introversion into the minds of the average person. Though this story ended more abrupt than expected, leaving much questions hovering, it allows the reader to dwell on the author's moral intention. There are some scenarios in Pigtopia that may not be for the fainthearted, though the universal picture Fitzgerald wants heard goes far beyond the dirty lurkings of human thoughts and choices; equality.


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THE WINNER: Thai designer Wisharawish Akarasantisook has won this year's Mango Fashion Awards, beating out nine other finalists. Inspiration for the winning collection was based on the death of his father, he said, which prompted a return to Thailand (after four years in Paris), Buddhist temples and "the relationship between life, death and nature. It's a collection with a lot of detail and hand-made pieces."
Prize winnings totaled 300,000 euros (or upwards of $372,000 at current exchange) and on the jury for this fourth edition were Kate Moss; the King of Spain's ex-son-in-law, Jaime de Marichalar, and Saks Fifth Avenue's fashion director Colleen Sherin.
This story first appeared in the May 31, 2012 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.